Colm Tóibín has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize for the third time, for his 2012 novel The Testament of Mary. The Irish writer was one of twelve authors on the long-list, which the judges say is "surely the most diverse" in the prize's history.

Despite Tóibín's entry, ten of the twelve entries are first time nominees, with Jim Crace the other writer to have gotten close to Booker success before.

Robert Macfarlane, this year's chair of judges, said: "This is surely the most diverse longlist in Man Booker history: wonderfully various in terms of geography, form, length and subject. These 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1,000, and from Shanghai to Hendon," according to the Guardian.

One macabre "love story." In Forever Mine, a darling Gretchen Mol meets cabana boy Joseph Fiennes while on holiday with her NYC politico husband Ray Liotta. Naturally she falls for the lad, and as we know how jealous Ray can get, he has the guy killed. Or so he thinks... 14 years later, Fiennes returns, reinventing himself as some kind of lawyer/drug lord, to exact his revenge.